Dreams are strange things.
For a while, they are nothing more than
staccato leaps of imagination
taking place like silent films in your mind.
Then, before you realize it,
you’re standing on the pavement
wondering why your dream has led you
to the busy road,
and why your feet are creeping out
between the yellow lines
in front of a Honda
that doesn’t stop in time.

Now I know what dreams are.
They are merciless and dark and agonising,
rather like nightmares instead of
cotton candy toddler fantasies.
They are the dreams that look like heaven
and end with syringes and dripping IVs and
crisp bloodstained sheets.
They are things that live only in poems
and the memories of the forgetful.
My life is not a poem,
and I remember
all too well.